>> it makes them feel good about being there melania: that's very important. to see them. o see the sacrifices, right. do you want to read it to me? >> thank you for serving our country. thank you for fighting for your life, thank you for being a veteran. thank you for serving our country. melania: that's beautiful. >> thank you for helping everyone in the country. thank you for everything you do. melania: beautiful job. >> dear veterans, thank you for rving our country my parents

-- [inaudible] melania: do you want to read yours? o you want to read it? >> dear troops, merry christmas. it's ok if you're not celebrating with your family this year. i think you'll still have a great time. if you are, that's even better. they'll be very happy to see you. thank you for all your help and service. have a very merry christmas. melania: bufmente >> dear veterans, i want to wish you a merry christmas. [inaudible] >> the u.s. house returns in about 20 minutes to begin work on several natural resources bills and another measure that provides support for efforts to protect mental health of law enforcement officers. tomorrow, the house, a debate on a resolution requiring all members and staff to complete

mandatory anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training in each session of congress. the house is live here on c-span when members return at 4:30. in other capitol hill news, the senate budget committee has passed the tax reform reconciliation bill by 12-11, party line vote. legislation includes oil drilling in the arctic and repealing the health care law. the insurance mandate. the bill now heads to the senate floor for consideration. before that final committee vote earlier today prork testers against the tax bill interrupted the hearing with some of them being removed by law enforce. . see the senate budget hearing committee later tonight, sometime after the house adjourns for the evening. on the size of the u.s. nuclear arsenal. e are joined by co-founder of the stimson center and barry blechman, what is the stimson how long have you been studying the issue of the

u.s. nuclear arsenal? i've been studying the issue personally for over 50 years. 30 stimson center is almost years old, we're nonpartisan, onprofit think tank, here in washington and we work on a range of security issues, weapons being one of them. host: and how many people do you have there? does it get funding from? guest: we have about 50 people. funding comes from foundation, government contracts, european governments, as u.s. government and a little bit comes from individuals. host: and barry blechman, co-founder, distinguished fellow there. the ave been working on nuclear issue for 50 years. viewers may remember the president talking about wanting put the u.s. nuclear arsenal in perfect condition, perfect the president said. what condition is it in right now? it?t is not perfect about guest: it's in pretty good condition and it's getting

better because president obama a very large nuclear odernization program, where replacing the submarines, missiles, land h base missiles and bombers with new versions and new warheads new infrastructure, so the president's going to have to find far and wide to additional things to do to if he wantsarsenal, to. host: let's talk about the arsenal, how do we understand size, is it by warhead, type of delivery vehicle? warhead is probably the best measure. allave maybe 5000 warheads, told, including those on-weapons and those in reserve. 1550 long-range by the warheads, limited start agreement that we negotiated with the russians, but we also have some tactical weapons, maybe 500 of them, as

well as additional bomber weapons. host: that new start agreement hat you refer to, president barack obama involved in negotiations back in 2011, gave next year to meet those limits. on we there at 1550, are we track to meet that? guest: yes, we have already met it. russians lieve the have of yet, they are on track to meet it, as well. what is limitation for the russians and how did we can come to the number? limitations are the same, 1550, i'm not sure how they ended up with that number, it higher in previous agreements 67 agreements. with the going down russians since the nixon agreement. 30,000 nuclear warheads each. -- 15 let 50, why is enough 1234 ed guest: the theory, you want

enough nuclear weapons to retaliate attack and with devastating force against the attacker. one would that, no be tempted to start a nuclear attack. an there is nothing magic about 1550. bama had announced his goal of going down to 1000 weapons, but relations turned bad and, you know, we quit talking to them. size andking about the status of the u.s. nuclear arsenal. barry blechman with the stimson center. if you want to join the conversation, have questions, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. before we get to the calls, what keep up the to current u.s. nuclear arsenal? what is the price tag? is very e price tag high and going to be higher. the cbo, congressional budget estimated this modernization program i

$1.2ribed will cost between and $1.5 trillion dollars over next 30 years. the same amount as tax cut that trillion. host: what is the main cost here? $1.5 thrillion? guest: these are very expensive, systems. he submarines and submarine launch missiles are probably the most expensive. the bomber will be very expensive, no doubt. and we don't know how much the be, theyd missile will are just starting to design the follow-on. ost: when it comes to the u.s. nuclear posture, what is our -- this term, nuclear posture review, is something that we've talked about a bit in the past, specially several years ago when last visited, remind us what that is. guest: well, congress requires administration to do a nuclear posture review, to look

arsenal, the size of modernization, as well as the doctrine.licy and so the trump administration's was w is in draft, it briefed to the president in september and will come out year, maybed of the early next year. will contain his decisions on whether he wants to add additional weapons, although he's constrained by the start agreement. modernization program in some ways, there has been another e wants to add nuclear armed cruise missile to submarines. and most importantly, whether he wants to change policy. years, on bipartisan basis, administrations have been narrowing what we say about when weapons.use nuclear obama said we would only use

extraordinary circumstances and not against nonnuclear weapon state in compliance with the nonproliferation treaty. new umors are that the posture review, we'll loosen wet, the constraints on what say about when we might use nuclear weapons. host: do you believe that is the that is what will happen? uest: i think it will be, it fits with the president's philosophy, threats he's been making against north korea and others, i think it is very unfortunate, because it tells countries that nuclear weapons are important and therefore, hey, maybe i ought to some of my own. i don't like -- i don't continuing is a good idea 6789 how much does the simmering conflict with north korea, how much is that driving, ou think, the president's strategy when it comes to nuclear weapons and when to use them?nd not use guest: i don't think it is

driving that, it is certainly relations in east asia and he's working hard to chinese to lean on the north koreans in such a way they constrain their program. but, i don't think it will posture e nuclear review, i think that's a broader question. host: several callers for you. them.get to john in brooklyn, new york, line for democrats. on with gerry of the stimson center. c-span, good morning, thank you for taking my two quick questions. and russia d states dominate the nuclear arsenal in and establishing the peace structure around the orld, do you think that the additional countries like china, has the same a, philosophy as maintaining the the structure around world? y second question is, based on

nuclear material availability is nd the world, how likely it that a terrorist entity can weapons?nuclear thank you so much for taking my call. host: thanks for the question. guest: thank you. u.s. and russia have more than 90% of all the nuclear weapons in the world, so we certainly determine what happens arsenals.ear the other nuclear arm states say hey will not engage in negotiations until the u.s. and russia substantially cut their arsenals. as i said, we and russia each have thousands of weapons, no than a few more hundred, including the chinese. dominate ussia will the peace structure in europe, for sure, whether there is a eastern europe, that will depend on what nato, the russia and natodo.

but the situation in russia will by the chinese and u.s. to a lesser extent. host: james, san diego, california, line for republicans, go ahead. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. my question or point goes like this. just like in football, when you pile-on, some nation attacks the united states, china north korea, what is to say they are all not going to attack 550 weapons to e shoot back at, that doesn't make sense that we're confined by at all.eaty host: james, you think we should 1550 allow? ed caller: i certainly do. pile-on, one player goes on and everybody else says, we can get rid of the united pile-on, help me with that thought. host: james, do you have a sense makes you feel safe? caller: a number greater than he combined numbers that are out there, how do we know china

only has x amount? nuclear all their places, see how many weapons they actually have? so.on't think guest: we know how many the chinese have because we know all about the reactors that can produce the materials that are weapons. hese we know where they are and how much materials they can produce. chinese only have maybe three or four hundred weapons, to five hundred eventually. north korea have a handful of weapons. more importantly, our weapons are invulnerable or some of the ones on the submarines can never be destroyed destroyed. there's no anti-submarine detect ties that could submarinessdrdestroy our f. russia, china, japan attacked far-fetched ly, a idea, the submarines would

survive and retaliate and they weapons to totally destroy all three countries, if countries were to attack us. problem.is really not a host: in terms of what we know nuclear her countries' development and arsenals, are we confident we know where iran is to development of their nuclear capabilities? guest: yes, thanks to the iran agreement, which was negotiated few years ago under the obama administration, iran has more of anything related to its nuclear capabilities than any other country in the world and every quarter the nternational atomic energy agency conducts inspections, place, ve inspectors in every quarter they report and every report has said that they with the pliance agreement, which not only stops

them from having nuclear prevents them from having nuclear materials that concentrated enough to produce nuclear weapon. so as long as that agreement is we can be very confident that we don't have to worry about iran. go ahead. guest: i'm sorry, the first caller's question about likelihood they could have nuclear weapons. i forgot that. great amount of nuclear materials around the world, medical facilities, reactors and these and could ized produce a threat of what we call something that would spread nuclear material, to they would not be able construct a nuclear weapon, goething that would actually boom and have destructive capability of a nuclear weapon. iran, before we leave remind us what the key decision congress and the white house

need to make when it comes to iran nuclear deal in the coming month? uest: well, the president has refused to state that iran is in agreement, with the despite what the iaea, nternational atomic energy agency said and despite what very other country who signed the agreement, including european allies have said and he kick today down the road to the congress. and the congress could in decide to put back in place -- excuse me, the sanctions that were lifted, the sanctions on iran that were for them return accepting the constraints on weapons.clear so, it would be unfortunate if is if d that, my guess the congress did put back the constraints, iran and the rest would continue with the agreement and only american

out.ness that would lose the french energy company total, not xample, would be happy to have to compete with american oil companies in developing the industry. host: to brandtnnashville, tennessee, line for go ahead.ts, caller: good morning, thank you for c-span. quick comment, hawaii is testing an early warning system my nuclear attack, but question is, please, you other issues in nuclear, could you describe the which we seem to be in the amount of the total defense since the patriot act? total amount of defense when it comes to nuclear that lities, brandt, is what you're asking? caller: no, we're told obama set aside $1.2 trillion, but not

told how much has been set aside homeland security, it's so spread out. total?ebody have a host: got it, got your point. guest: i'm sorry, i don't have that total. have a project at the stimson center to answer that question anti-terrorist money, counter-terrorist money homeland out and security department, state department, defense department seen a total myself. we're trying to put one ogether, maybe i'll be invited back to talk about that one day. host: we'd be happy to have you center, that, stimson stimson.org, to check them out on the web. hanabel,line for democrats, go ahead. thank hi, i want to c-span and thank your desk. senate six years on the staff and always found stimson incredibly useful and

informative. i was wonder figure your guest about the center's namesake, henry stimson, served in patriot, many different capacities, but retirement as secretary of war under f.d.r., himou could say a bit about and his autobiography with bundy. guest: sure, he was an extraordinary man, we named the center after him. he served as secretary of war back under president taft, war and e first world he then enlisted when he was in led an artillery unit in france on the front then went back and served as secretary of state in the kept going back to his law firm in new york and president en roosevelt knew we were going into world war ii, he did not be a partisan issue

war.eeded entry to the he recruited stimson and a man of war and frank knox, to be secretary of navy, both prominent republicans. stimson served in his 70s as presiding overr, 12 million-man army and budget think was like 40 or 50% of the gnp, it was really quite extraordinary. host: stimson center founded in 1989. correct. host: you're >> all of today's "washington journal" at c-span.org. the house is coming back in right now. ered, or votes objected to under clause 6 of rule 20. house will resume proceedings on the postponed questions at a later time. for what purpose does the gentleman from colorado seek recognition? >> mr. speaker, i move to suspend the rules and pass h.r.